Interview 3 // Roz Dimon

Welcome to the Techspressionist Artist Interview Series. Today is February 5th, 2021. My name is Michael Pierre Price. I'm a Techspressionist artist out of Phoenix, Arizona. I specialize in creating abstract, algorithmic, and surrealist works. Today I'm pleased to conduct this interview, this artist interview with Roz Dimon. Roz has been working with digital media since 1984 and continues to be an innovator in this medium some 37 years later. Originally from Atlanta, she drove her VW Beetle all the way to New York City with her paintings filled with pixels. That led her on an exciting and unplanned adventure, which she will share more about with us today. Her latest works are immersive paintings that exist both on the wall and on the web simultaneously.

Michael Pierre Price

Several of these are in major museum collections, including the 9-11 Memorial Museum. Roz is also an ordained interfaith minister, and she is a member of Carter Burden Gallery in New York City. For Roz, science and spirit are increasingly coming together in an evolving story, which I personally look forward to hearing more Roz talk about. Her handle on social media is Rozolution. She is a! And her latest project is a new kind of blog and memoir called ArtStory.net.

Michael Pierre Price

Hi Roz. Hi Michael. It's good to be with you today. Why don't we get started with you sharing some important aspects of your background, like where you were born, where you currently live and practice and create your artwork, and the cultural influences that, you know, kind of made you the artist that you are.

Thanks. Well, you may have heard it in my voice, but I don't know if I've said y'all yet. But even though I did drive up here, yes, in 1981 actually in my VW Beetle. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm from a very large and boisterous outgoing Southern family. And you know, it's hard to believe this, but I was a rather shy child. But the South was an influence.

Roz Dimon

And I would say from the very beginning. I was, the influences, my grandparents, I mean, when I was a baby, I could draw by the time I was, well, I was drawing before I was talking really. So that all came from my grandparents and no one else in my family could draw. My father was an orthopedic surgeon, so he had this pretty renowned in hip surgery and his hands were really, you know, that's a very, the dexterity, you need to be a good surgeon. Mother, very outspoken and outspoken. So I'm very outgoing. So art was always filled with peace marches for me going to, marching and all sorts of other things. I went to the University of Georgia.

Roz Dimon

Lamar Dodd School of Art. And I guess those were my early days. There probably more influences but I'm just going to go ahead and open up this PowerPoint I have presentation and get into it and we can just keep going if that's good with you.

Yeah, sure. So, did you know you were going to be an artist for the rest of your life? Did you know that from early on? Or was there like some transformative moment in your life when you realized art, that's what I, you know, that's, that's who I am and what I need to do?

I think that I think the people around me knew my family knew my, you know, they called me Leonardo to TT that's my to T is my nickname everybody that's out there as nicknames.

Oh wow.

Let this get out in the universe. But they called me Leonardo to TT because I was. They. I didn't talk much. I was so shy but I drew a lot and wow. And so other people knew I guess I was an artist, but I don't think I really knew the meaning of being it's a great question of what it meant to really be an artist I mean just you could I could draw, I really could draw. And, and I had a real connection between my up here and my hand always. But, I didn't really know what it meant to draw. Until. I landed in a class at the Lamar dot School of Art, and I can talk about that a minute before we open up this PowerPoint but I had an instructor who put in it was a really great school Mar dot it was wonderful very rigorous. I also studied in Gortona Italy while I was with Lamar dot School of Art, but the day that I started my drawing class and he put my drawing along with others up on the wall and he went, and he had us all go out and draw something in the driveway of the school like I think there was a motorcycle park there and he said now, he said, I'm going to draw a motorcycle park.

Roz Dimon

And I said, No, this person can really draw. I mean look she can draw but what is she saying, like what, what, what does it matter if she can draw a perfect motorcycle or she knows how you know what is she saying what is she touching what is she feeling what is she thinking and you know what, that was it. Wow, this history. That's when I went, Oh, this is what it means to be an artist you know I'm going to share my world through this language, and boy, I did that, that's what I know.

What an aha moment. Huh. What

An aha moment. Huh. It really was.

Yeah, that's cool.

It was a very aha moment and I was so happy that kind of joy you know that you know who you are. I mean I often think that people aren't shy, they just don't know who they are yet, you know, okay.

So, anyway, go ahead and get your present presentation up on the screen here.

You can see I'm very reticent to talk now, you know I came out of the box and my mother said she's never going to go back in. I think that's probably true. Anyway, I'm kind of jumping in here. Oh I knew the phone would ring. All these devices. Goodbye. Anyway, I'm starting here I have the screen up. When I got out of the University of Georgia.

Roz Dimon

Oh I did want to say, Michael I'm kind of going backward but I'm looking at our questions. You know, biggest influence. Coming up as New York City but I did want to say before I get into that, that I think I may have said that both my grandmothers were really talented at art and it all glommed on right on to me. And one of five kids and so that was always there. What we're looking at right now is a portrait of my mother after I graduated from the Lamar Doug School of Art I'm still in Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm just as I look back now it's so interesting to me that technology was there from my very first show. I'm still in Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm still as I look back now it's so interesting to me that technology was there from my very first show. Which I did these portraits of people I painted portraits.

Roz Dimon

Which I did these portraits of people I painted portraits. And this is about 36 by 24, it's so this is of my mother, any Mitchell diamond di mo n by the way. And this

Is about 36 by 24, it's so this is of my mother, any Mitchell diamond di mo n by the way. Yes.

Well people always think it's diamond, like a jewel.,

Well people always think it's diamond, like a jewel. Okay.

Like Simon but with a D. Anyway, this is a painting of my mother and while my mother was sitting and all the other centers were sitting I, I decided to tape record them, because they were so beautiful. Because they were so beautiful. When they came into the gallery and some of these portraits were talking off the walls and they would talk once in a while when I'd be mixing pains and doing things. And so when you came into the gallery. All these portraits were talking off the walls and I called the show Talking Heads in Atlanta, Georgia. It actually got covered by National Newsweek because it was just they said if he's gone to this gallery where you know you go in and you don't have to talk at all it's already it's already buzzing them any come in all these paintings or talking to you.

Okay.

So I just recorded, I didn't, they didn't, they could talk about anything they wanted, you know, like I'm too fat. I love candy bars or teenage children, raising teenage children. My mother had great things to say about that. And, and, but it's so interesting to me that the technology entered even that first show Talking Heads. Now this was way before the Talking Heads group came along.

Roz Dimon

But I will say the biggest influence in my life was this incredible city, New York City. And of course, thank you to Shutterstock. I did not buy this, but I always credit when I don't. And I always buy things if they're in my larger pieces. You know, this is just for a presentation, but you can just see all those squares and all that information just going up in these spires. And boy, I just fell in love with New York.

So what, what prompted you to get in your VW Beetle to drive to New York City? Was it the fact that, you know, all great artists, all great artists end up in New York or was there something else that, that just spurred you on?

You know, I was just, I was, I was walking faster and talking faster now that I was out of the box, you know, and I, New York had always been in my mind since almost the beginning of my years in training when I decided, you know, at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, I went, I've got to get to New York. And I knew I didn't quite, I didn't fit in the South really, you know, it's, it's a part of me. I, yes, I do say y'all sometimes just to freak everybody out a little bit, but, you know, I just, it was pulling and I knew the South wasn't where I just wasn't going to stay.

Yeah. Okay.

And I know that was my biggest leap and I, and I did it. So I was so glad I did. I mean, it was so difficult, very difficult, but I can't imagine these people are coming from other countries sometime, you know? Let's go to the, oh. Ha. I just got here. I just want to put up this picture that I got off of, of Shutterstock or Alamy or wherever, because, you know, you'd watch those movies about, you know, your, some young actress comes to New York City and the first scene you see her in her apartment or him, and they're looking out over New York City and this is my, ready? This is my first apartment in New York City. It was advertised as a garden apartment on the Upper West Side. This is the garden. This is the garden. And the rest of the apartment, the apartment looked exactly the same way.

Roz Dimon

I mean, I could, I could take a bath, call my mother. I could cook my dinner and sleep and paint and without even moving, you know, the apartment was so small.

Uh-huh.

And, and there was the, you know, the fire department came up every, you know, week because the boiler exploded and it was, you know, but I was so in love with New York the minute, I just love the hustle and bustle of all of it.

Yeah.

Influences. I know that's something that is, you know, I'm not a big fan of the New York City, but, you know,

I'm a big fan of the New York City. And I'm in the New York City looking for the best place to do it. And I'm in the New York City to do it. And I'm in the New York City to do it. And I'm in the New York City to do it. And I'm in the New York City to do it. And I'm in the New York City to do it. And I'm in the New York City to do it. And I'm in the New York City to do it. And I'm in the New York City to do it.

Michael Pierre Price

And I'm in the New York City to do it. Of artists that are sort of coming together under this, you know, this banner of Techspressionism that understanding sort of where the aesthetic comes from, from each of the artists is a really interesting thing to find out about because I think there's such a diversity there that it's nice to know sort of, well, you're using technology, but you know, why are you using it in the way you are and what really sort of motivates you or who has motivated you or what forms of expression have motivated you? So yeah, thanks for delving into that now. Yeah, sure.

You know, the image I have on the screen right now is an artist named Ed Paschke. He's out of Chicago and I saw his paintings early on when I was in New York and I just thought they had this wonderful electronic electricity to them, just like the city itself, which I started responding to immediately.

Roz Dimon

But it's not just about the style, he's also painting something about communications and about this interaction between this man and this woman and they almost seem like they're in somewhere in outer space already. But I was always interested in that space between people, whether it was the mathematical pixels I could feel or the spirit between them.

Roz Dimon

And Laurie Anderson was also another artist. For me, life and art are the influences. It's not just this artist and that artist, which there are just many of them, I would say, because every artist is different. But in terms of artists, Laurie Anderson, I went to see her at the Palladium early on in New York and she played that electronic violin and she was wonderfully skilled, but there was also this incredible energy and relationship to people and the kind of access she brought to her life. And I think that's what I love about her work, which I love. There are all sorts of different digital artists. There are people who do academic, incredible intellectual, conceptual hacking, all sorts of things going on. I'm still very much a painter in a painter's world and in a visual world, and I'm really trying to reach people beyond the museum.

Roz Dimon

I mean, I love going into museums, but I'm really trying to touch people and bring access and intimacy to this medium. So Laurie Anderson was an early influence. She could just rock the whole house and it didn't matter if you were an artist or what. She had you. She had you and she had a passion and she was talking about cultural things and what was happening in politics. And it's larger than the medium, even though the medium is very important to me. I use all media, but this one has been the most influential because it speaks to today. I mean, everybody has a computer they want to throw out the window, but it is also the very thing that has changed our whole world. Nam June Paik was another one. I mean, you know, this is a very important thing. This isn't just about digital or early TV stuff.

Roz Dimon

It's about the country and how we get along. I mean, we all agree. You can see all the colors and diversity of America. It's a great celebration. And this I'm going right into, sometimes you'll see the side of my face because I'm looking at another screen when I show this. These are two paintings, early paintings in New York. I'd been there a year or two and the paintings just started to fill up with these, you know, you saw how loose my mother's portrait was. Yes, it was these loose marks, but all these, one is called June and December on the right. And the other is called Bartok.

Roz Dimon

And these are oil on canvas. And they're these sort of film montages. I'm painting like a movie in a moment already, but I'm still, it's all about a flat. I like that flat 2D surface. I never get too layered up, except I do now in digital, but it's about a montage of things going on. And also there's a man out there in winter. He's thinking about the beach in June and it's called June and December. And I'm actually painting little circles and squares of kind of information. And also the same thing about a Bartok where two people are sitting at a bar. They're looking at these kind of lollipop like looking trees and the squares of their consciousness are infiltrating the space. And I did these pieces for years. I'd started doing when I left Atlanta a little bit and I call them information paintings.

Roz Dimon

I was painting emotion, but I was also painting information about the world. So I'm just quickly going way ahead, very recent. I'm still painting information. And these are just literally little crop closeups of my recent work on the left. It's the interior of a gun battle, a barrel, excuse me. I did a series of guns. Again, speaking to a cultural force out there. And this is literally a crop that is just one inch of the painting. And I felt like it shows a little bit more of the technical. I mean, it's a little bit more of a technical expression when you go in close to these pieces. And the one on the right is one of my diamond scape interactive immersive paintings where, I mean there's thousands of layers going on here. So it's just want to put that juxtaposition but I'm going back to New York which really was the biggest influence.

Roz Dimon

This is a piece called Kevin and Jane take a walk in New York. I haven't gotten into digital media yet but you can see I'm heading there. I'm I tore up a New York times crossword puzzle. And this is only 11 by about a year ago. I'm 11 by 14. This is mixed media. John Wayne is alive and well and writing the IRT another information painting.

Roz Dimon

And there's mapping going on but it's just getting so tight. It's like, I'm trying to paint math. I'm trying to paint something I don't have in the brush that I'm using. Again, this a little looser, but everywhere I went I was seeing these squares and this consciousness and taking notes. And I went to jury duty and I painted the judge. This is called jury duty. It's got the X's on the calendar. The clock is ticking slowly.

Roz Dimon

Yeah, everybody's bored.

So these here are pre digital. Yeah. And it's interesting because it almost looks like you're trying to paint collages or trying to paint things that have multiple layers on top of one another. So you can kind of see where you're gonna finally end up in a way, whether you were consciously, you know, knowing it or not, I guess.

Exactly, Michael. I didn't know what a pixel was at the time but I think I was trying to draw them.

Yes, yeah.

I could feel the technology in the air and you know, the faxes and I would go and do temp jobs to support my habit and I'd be in, you know, you'd see there was just electricity flying through New York. I just felt this pulse and it wasn't just the people. It was the pulse overall.

Okay.

And it seemed electronic in a way. This is a chemical bank. There used to be a bank called a chemical bank. Again, it's, I'm showing quite a lot of these. Oh, June and December again. You know, for me, a dog was not a dog anymore. I mean, I didn't know what a fluffy dog would be. This is what a dog is. But for me in New York, Wakla dog.

Yeah.

It became Wakla dog. So, cause everybody's just out there marching and talking and information is flying everywhere and TVs and you know, telecommunications. We're coming and even on this, this is a big piece. It's oil. And I'm showing these cause I think I do agree with you. It's kind of fun to see the obsession. How did we land in this medium? You know, I landed in it totally by accident. Really, totally. But it seemed to be faded.

Well, yeah, I mean, I guess just from my observational point of view and I don't want to interrupt you too much. No, do. It seems like a lot of these pieces are, are about a bigger thing that you're trying to express within the confines of the, what we would call the traditional medium of the time.

Michael Pierre Price

And it's sort of a harbinger for you personally of where you're going to end up on all the technology thing because this feels, I mean, this, this almost feels like you doing a, preliminary sketch or doing something that you're going to end up doing in Photoshop with lots of layers and things like that. It's almost like you're doing a pre-production image of, you know, doing something very, very elaborate on the technology front almost. So, but I like the sense that you're, I like the juxtaposition with showing the dog because this is like the fullness of life and what that needs. And I think that's, I think that's the kind of thing that I'm taking it beyond here is a dog or here is just a person in one moment, walking a dog. You're looking at it kind of in the full scope of, of life in the city.

Michael Pierre Price

If you have a dog in New York city, what does that mean?

Yeah.

You can take that in, you know, so many different subjects, but I see that as sort of this underlying thread in a lot of your work, which I think gives it so much depth.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And I think that's, I think that's the thing that's really interesting. So, you know, I traded in my reluctantly, my oils, I was just forced, you know, I had a few shows in New York and I mean, the first one was in my one room apartment, really sexy, but you know, you start and you just keep going and you have to start somewhere, but the last show, it just was, it was, the pixels were so tight. So I just said, Hey, someone said, Roz, you're not painting with the right brush anymore. I signed up early to take these lessons at the school of visual arts. And here I am, you can see, look how old this, look at that rotary phone. Like I'm painting this piece called information woman. And this is a few years, isn't quite, this is beyond, this was like in the, I think in the late eighties or nineties, I'm already working on a Wacom pen.

Roz Dimon

So I've skipped a few iterations of Atari and I started on an Amiga, but you know, and you can see these, I don't know, I think they were called zip drives or something in the background, but look at those phones. We, people, when I talk to my young programmer now, and I say, John Mark, you have to understand, I was painting with, some of us were painting online, but we weren't really, we weren't really online. We were painting digital art, but it was before the internet, no email, no interruptions. I mean, and you know, when you, when you, when you take an interruption like that, I was already showing with Sandy Gehring gallery and, you know, doing some beautiful luscious kind of paintings. And, but they were getting very tight. And then all of a sudden this, this, this, you know, you take a step forward, but you really take a, this is a kind of crude looking thing compared to what I've been doing.

Roz Dimon

But this is my first digital, one of my early digital pieces, not the first, but one of the early ones called Brush and Box. And it's sort of like a funeral for this brush, but I was just thrilled to death to even have the minimal colors I had. I threw the toolbox into the painting, which was not the thing to do those days.

Roz Dimon

So now I'm into this new thing where the plug rains, you know, it's, it's a, this is my homage to the plug. Things were heating up a little bit. It was at that time, you know, we're getting into the early nineties to mid nineties. I think where it's where we are here and AT&T purchased eight of these for their super computing facility when they're still there in New Jersey. I output to Chrome. I would take my floppy disk to Dugale, which is a big photo outfit, you know, and they would make it into a Chrome. And I had these little shoot the burglar cameras. At first I didn't even have a floppy disk. I took the image off the screen.

Oh my gosh.

I know. And this is an early show at Burns Fine Art. Friend of mine, Jane Scott worked at Burns Fine Art. She liked my work and, and took a plunge. And this is, I mean, there was a lot of interest and these were all digital paintings. It's a little, it's a little bit of a low res photo. Lots of fun, lots of excitement.

Roz Dimon

Things were, I was featured in Forbes magazine. I went with David Hockney and some others. And I went rushing out of course to what am I offered for this floppy disk? And they interviewed one of my collectors, Jonathan Pardee. And, and he said, really it's about the trust of the artists. Like they said, what's to make you trust someone where they make this file that they can repeat millions of times, even then, you know the commerce part of it interested Forbes.

Right.

He said, it's the trust of the artist. I mean, you can make a lithograph over and over, you know? I mean, and so if I said I was going to do 10 of something, you know, he knew I wasn't going to do 10 of something. But I was so excited to be in this with David Hockney and some other really good artists.

Yeah, no kidding.

What's that? What?

That's really totally awesome. Yeah.

Thank you. I went out and bought every Forbes magazine I could find on the Lower East Side, believe me.

I would have done the same.

I was very excited. Oh, that was 91. Yeah. And, and of course, as I kept painting the machines as you know, you know, being you know, a gamer and everything, you've had such an interesting background too. You know, the machines, I would always trade them in every couple of years to get the next biggest and best. And oh my gosh, you know, I have more than a 2K floppy disk. I was like, how exciting.

Roz Dimon

This is called Lost in a City of Dreams. This is like a commission outbore. I am giving a history because you know, a lot of the presentations have been about what you're doing and I will get to what I'm doing, but I agree with you that, I'm not going to be doing this all the time. I'm going to be doing this all the time. I'm going to be doing this all the time. And I think that, you know, I want to share this history. It's, it gives an evolution. You know, we talked about, I know that is, I'm kind of looking at our, we try to stick to some kind of format, but we don't have to, but you know, in terms of, you know, evolution, I think this just shows it. This is a piece called, this is called Electronic Directions, Racing Down the Information Highway with Vice President Al Gore. And he actually signed three of these.

Roz Dimon

This was a zine, a magazine, actually, physical magazine, in the, I don't know, the New York Times, I think it was the early, oh, it was 94, run by Roger Sperberg. And he commissioned me to do the cover. I was working at the World Trade Center at the time where I always worked. That was like my graduate school after School of Visual Arts, because they had no graduate school at that time. I just took courses. But I kind of made it on, based on the American flag. Americana is always from Jesus to Coca-Cola to Wall Street. I'm always painting things about America. But actually Al Gore signed three of these for me, and I have two of these still signed, and I'm, I'm really thrilled about that. He really was, he was in the forefront of that game.

That's really neat.

That was fun. And then I, an exciting thing that happened, I also enjoy curating from time to time. This is the biggest thing I ever curated. I, Rika, I was starting to talk more about digital art and computer art, and Riko Maresca Gallery in SoHo heard me and said, look, we sometimes go away from our, what we normally do, which is folk art and photography, mainly folk art. And they said, but we'd like to do a digital show with you as the curator. And we worked for a year on this show. And Softimage, Microsoft, Apple, and Silicon Graphic, all of them, all together in one room, got involved in this show.

Wow. Those are some hit, those were heavy hitters at that time.

They really were. I mean, we had bands pulling up with huge Cray computers, and Char Davies of Softimage did an immersive piece that was spectacular.

Oh, and back then, I mean, Silicon Graphics machines were going for $10,000 and up for the low end. Softimage, you had to buy the different modules. They were really, really pricey. Oh, yeah. Software back then. People have no clue, you know, like how specialized this was. Can I ask, I do have one question for you.

Michael Pierre Price

I'm curious about the technology. Being a woman in technology, did you find that you were sort of a lone female voice in this realm or on the art scene? Because, you know, at this point in time, you know, I was in the male-dominated game industry heavily at this time, and there weren't that many women. So what was it like? I mean, was it pretty? Was it equal at that point? And I know art's been always dominated by men to some degree, but what was it like for you as a woman artist?

No, I don't mind speaking to that at all. I mean, I've marched in every conference for, you know, for women's rights and pro-choice since I had a brain, you know, that evolved when I was 18. But I feel strongly about women being able to either be a homemaker if they want to. Now that we're all at home, even men realize, wow, this is like running a corporation. Yeah. You know, it's weird.

Roz Dimon

And it should be acknowledged as such. Absolutely. We should put a value on it, a monetary one on it, just to give it an equal standing at least. But I, to answer your question, you know, because it was so new, that's what kind of made it kind of exciting. I started a group called Picture Element and worked with eight other artists who met at each other's houses.

Roz Dimon

And it was so new and we were learning it together. And that's what's so wonderful when you're in a, in a medium that is growing at a certain pace. I kind of feel like we're there again. I think expressionism has a very nice openness about it. And, and you know, otherwise the arts can get into an ego contest really quickly. Sure. And I have one too, and I'm always wrestling with it. But I must say at that time, the techies who were there and who were, they go, now look, when you plug this in, this happens. And I, I go, oh, how cool. And, and, you know, I, you know, my husband once said to me, he said, you know, now that you know how woofers and tweeters work, he said, you're not going to respect me anymore. Yes, I will. But, but you know what? It was wonderful in that way.

And they

Were pretty gracious. I mean, I felt men. Yeah. Some of the men who I worked with. Were just fabulous. And they'd say, now, look, when you do this, you want to plug this, you want that to work because we were learning together and they were kind of amazed at the imagery that I was making. And of course there were women techies too. I think by the end of the.com, I think by the end of the.com, I think by the end of the.com at the, at the, when Silicon alley and Valley were really the bucks were just flowing in. There was some real, there was some kind of.

Roz Dimon

Adolescent really snotty behavior going on, but that always. That's something I don't forgive it, but it, but I didn't have much of that.

Not as much. I was just curious. Yeah.

And, you know, honestly, in the early days of tech and of everything, like even in film, Alice. She was one of the early filmmakers woman. She has done great things for women and women are wonderful when She really made her career possible with women and nobody rarely did people even know her name? When I can espouse other women. I really do. And women have been a big influence. I mean, you know, Cynthia.

Roz Dimon

Panucci ran this wonderful art and science group that was great forever for a long time in New York. Cynthia Ruben and at wine tribe. She also was in picture element in this show. Davies. And this was a really, this was a blockbuster show. I mean, there were people coming around the block to get in the show. And one guy I was working with was a Harvard trained architect who had done the Sony playground, his friend, and he helped, he just gave it gratis, but he built, Michael Davies, really great, smart guy, does great architecture. He built this thing for us. So it was like a jungle gym of computers. Some were at children's level, some were at other levels. This is opening night. We had 300 people, Kenneth Snelson, if you know that name, he's a pretty famous sculptor who, you know, worked with Tencel technology with his work and was really amazing scientist and artist.

Roz Dimon

He was also in the show. And it had several rooms. This is Michael Gelman down here immersing in Char Davies piece that night. My parents came to the show and they were like, oh, we're going to do this. And I'm like, oh, we're going to do this. And they came up from Georgia. And I remember my mother later saying that she said to my father as they were coming to the gallery in Soho, they said, what's happened? Has there been an accident?

Roz Dimon

Because there were so many people. She had to stand in line to get in what really was my curated show. I mean, Rico, Roger and Frank, you know, helped with a lot of it. But I was like, thanks, mom. Thanks for the confidence, you know. But she had seen, I'd had other crowds at my show, but nothing like this. And, you know, it was really a wonderful, wonderful experience. And it was, you know, you were in those days of the gaming. I mean, it was up and down, but I was on a roll in New York City. And I also found that, you know, I was also working at these different places, all at the World Trade Center. Somehow, I lived close to the World Trade Center. And I was doing paintings about commerce and greed and just getting in there and taking part of it myself. I was getting paid very well. And I loved working in corporate as well as fine art while I was curating.

Roz Dimon

And I was doing things like writing my own quote and showing my pieces somewhat internationally. Then I would go to work and learn about fonts and all sorts of things that had real rigorous rules that I found engaging. And meanwhile, I was helping them set up the first new media, macro media director files and all sorts of things.

Roz Dimon

You can interrupt me. You can see how shy I am now. I can talk. I can keep talking. But you know, and also I'm watching the clock a little so we don't go too far. Yeah. Washington Pigs. Washington Pigs is a piece that I still really love very much, but it's a multi-layered piece about greed and capitalism and all that's good and bad about America. It has for sale in Washington's eyes and Africa in his ear and to go all over the map. And every man needs a wife and a dog and a gun. And I mean, there's millions, there's not millions, but lots of layers in this piece.

Roz Dimon

But I'm running along here. This is, I want to show this piece, especially because this is the world's greatest bar chart. I would go into Lehman Brothers. That was another one. That was another place I worked at the World Trade Center. And we would do these bar charts, you know, comparing how many millions of dollars Chase Manhattan Bank had made last year compared to this year and how Lehman was going to help them make a gazillion more. And I came home at night and made this flash shockwave file. It's actually a still painting. I always still like making still paintings. And animation only comes in for me when I want to enter the painting. You know, I want the painting to come off the wall to the viewer more.

Right.

So I went home at night and I made this. I made this painting that measures like just absolute nonsense. And let's see. Oh, I don't think I have the end. We're working on the, we're, John Markin, the programmer who works with me, we're rolling this up and we're bringing it back to life. But it's an interactive bar chart that is just full of crazy sounds and flags and noses and buttons. And you interact with the entire piece. That's coming soon. I'll share it with the text questions group.

Roz Dimon

Intelligent agent. Which was run by Patrick lifting. Who's part of our group and one of the founders. Oh, yeah. No founders. He actually was, you know, early on a real player, huge player. And this is the first issue of intelligent agent also co-produced with him with Christiane Paul, who is the adjunct curator of digital media at the Whitney for many years. Amazing woman as well. And beyond the zero is about the world's greatest bar chart. And I dug this up recently because it's really fun to look back. And I mean, it wasn't like this was online at the time.

Right.

None. I mean, a lot of things people say, well, I don't see any of your links to things. Well, there were no links. Yes. I mean, there were starting to be. Here's another piece called an information woman where a woman is getting bombarded by her thoughts. She's absolutely drowning. I'm going kind of fast here. I'm going to play this for Techspressionism, but I'm just going to go in it just a second and just show you that.

Roz Dimon

Woman's face being drawn over time. And you go further into the piece and it builds. And she's. And it goes on to the rest of the piece and the beach comes out of her elbow. And I'm going to get more into that later because that's a five minute piece and we just need to move along. This was an invitation in 2000 to Flash Bible, which was kind of a spiritual and technological view of all of our wonderful artifacts from Ajax to Coca-Cola. And I sent out this invitation and I am right now also rolling this up. This was also done in Macromedia director and Flash Shockwave, which isn't supported anymore. So I'm now going back to old emulators with John Mark again. I mean, we've been working together. A couple of years.

Roz Dimon

It's like finding a treasure in a treasure hunt. Like I go, you know, you put this thing in your CD and it would play the invitation. It was very funny. And we had these pink couches where people would sit around and look at animations on the ceiling. Short little animations. I don't want to bore people. How do you think we're doing here?

Roz Dimon

We're making room.

We're we probably should be. Continuing on with a couple of the other questions, but I think you're sort of naturally getting there.

Great. I'm trying to share my process. You know, I'm doing all these things in Photoshop, but I am moving into animation. But it is. Thank you for reminding me about process because it's for me, the animations were always about going inside the paintings. Right. So the painting is there on the wall and you go inside it. It isn't so much that I wanted things to move.

Roz Dimon

Walter Lika. A great. Champion of my work, who was the curator of the late curator, I will say of 17th century art Vermeer and Rembrandt. He was a big influence. It's really interesting to talk about things that were going on at the time for Rembrandt. He was very technically adventurous with lithographs and not just etchings in that time. And there I am at this opening. Oh, I want to talk about this because the pivotal thing in your life, things that I'm talking about. Oh, look at this. Isn't this great? Believe me. I'm leading to something. Yeah. Never just stay great. And, you know, life is exciting. The dot com was exploding. What could possibly go wrong? Well, I know that reading your background, you were there for the dot com bust. It affected a lot of people. This was the entrance to our building at the Wall Street Journal online where I had the plummest, most exciting job to create creative storytales.

Roz Dimon

Like I could take 24 pages of the year in review. And I was I worked with other people to make it into a graph. So storytelling. Storytelling was big time coming in. But this story really brought me to my knees. And I'm moving along. But I do want to share this, if nothing else, and maybe go quickly into the diamondscapes, the interactive paintings. But I actually went to I was in a bad way. I was just I thought life is over. You know, my husband, my husband, I both were high up in the dot com. I mean, I had been paid one hundred and twenty K to go from Deloitte to the Wall Street Journal to have the most creative job. You could get there with a signing bonus of 20 K. And this is in 2000. And then the dot com came. Everybody, you know, people were you weren't you didn't lose your you were let go because they saw the dot com coming down.

Exactly.

Yeah. And then my gallery closed. And, you know, I'm so lucky to be alive. So I don't mean to be playing my violin, but it was a terrible time. It was a bad, terrible time for the country. And I was really lost. And I did. I just was painting dumping containers for a few years out here in Shelter Island, not knowing what to do. Because we had to let go of our apartment. And there was just nothing was going on in downtown Manhattan for quite a while that could afford me. And I went to I saw the show at the Metropolitan about icons. And it said icons were a source of comfort to a nation besieged. And I was like, whoa. I mean, I couldn't think of doing an art show. I thought, why to show my wizardry? I can do web design. I can do paintings. I can you know, I just wasn't I wasn't I just couldn't do.

Roz Dimon

I just couldn't do art for the first time. And I went and I did this icon of the Theotokos, which is the Mary of bright sorrow. And it's layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of a prayer that you do for a week. I was the only professional artist in the class. Anybody can go take an icon painting class. It's prayer. And it's as far from Western expressionism as anything you could ever participate in. It's reverence. It's obedience to another icon. And you're copying. I mean, my rabboni, my rabbi, he kept coming by and going, Ms. Donnan, please put a quick move in your arm like you need to be diligent. I mean, I want to bust out. But it was a wonderful intellectual as well as well as religious exercise.

Roz Dimon

And in every layer means something and has symbolism. And icons are known for opening a window into the world of the painting itself for those who view it and have it in their space. And I have one in my space and they do. They have something about them. And I came back and I out of me exploded this piece that I call Pale Male. And it's about the hawk, Pale Male, who found his home in New York City when his home was lost. And it's also about Christ drained of blood. And it's about finding hope. It compares Jesus to Nike and all the places that I mean, I was in the richest working in the most wealthy enclave in the world, the World Trade Center. And I could play a little of it or we can just keep going forward. But this is an immersive painting. This is my first what I call my diamond scapes.

Roz Dimon

And I don't know.

Why don't you play a little bit of it just so we can sort of get a flavor of what you're talking about real

Quick. OK, I'll go into it. And these all have sound, too. But I think I'm going to turn the sound off. You can do it over on the left. And this is all coded. And I mean, I've been doing HTML for years by then. And now I'm working with a programmer, but I really know programming or how to do it. And I'm not sure if I have it's in my bones. But this piece, you know, I was working these multi layers of Photoshop. And I thought I came back from that icon class that I can share paintings that invite people in. So you look at this piece of pale male, 48 inches by 36 lightbox on the wall and you click on the QR code and go inside the painting. So it might look like it's analog and we often use old technology to get into new. But you're really going deep inside the layers of a painting. And all of it is coming up 100 percent to you until you get to the end.

Roz Dimon

And you can play it back and forth and it has an audio. And also, I feel most importantly, from the intellectual point of view, is it sources every single piece in a kind of bibliography. I mean, I feel like we're in the new Gutenberg press of imagery right now. It's images of images of images, images building to be an image. And pale male was done in 2005. And there's a Spanish version. And I'll go back. That's enough for people. I can share the URL later. But if you go to pale. Male a pilgrimage dot com online, you can find it.

That's awesome.

And, you know, there is always a kind of sweet grace that sometimes happens in your life. I mean, I really was so, so down like we've all had tragedies. But this was my biggest when everything was lost in New York, it seemed. And that was home. But this piece was seen by the 9-11 Memorial Museum, along with millions of others. Artists sent in and they went for it and they have it and it is in their permanent collection. And I'm just you know, there's something about that it came around. I mean, that was my home. I mean, for many from the 90s.

Roz Dimon

I think I showed this with shared this with expressionism. But since then, I've had several commissions for public artworks for nonprofits like the Shelter on Historical Society, where they asked me to do a piece about 700 years of history of the havens at the Havens house. And, you know, when you love the process you do and you don't I don't care if I'm painting a dog's nose. I'll get in there and do that. I'm going to do thousands of images about it from that from you know it's I'm into the idea that I'm doing an image that is made of so many images in a new language that I feel is building right now in our world.

Exactly.

You know, I mean we're all kind of doing that a little and a lot of painters are doing it you know I'm trying to think of their names, but I'll think of them. Judy. I'm a rain who I think I remember, Julian Murray to or so that's close enough but she's doing some wonderful mapping and so on. She's doing some wonderful mapping and so on. She's doing some wonderful mapping and stuff that shot using she's not doing it digitally but it's still reflecting the world we're in. Anyway, so I paste up this thing on the wall and in and put all the artifacts and things up collected and it's sort of like the, the x going across the y going up but the Z is what interests me. I'm interested in the Z and how you can go in this flat space and make something like this out of all those components I mean this piece.

Roz Dimon

The piece and it's getting rather abstract, you know, it's, it's got thousands of layers and I'm compressing them. And then I'm saving the hundred and they're all different variant layers. And then I'm letting people go into the piece through a QR code and I'm not going to go into this piece, or I could, I don't know, time wise, we're, we're not, we're like 45 minutes, I think.

Yeah, probably. Probably. If you want to, if you want to show some of it, go for it.

I'll do it really quickly because the rest of it's just, you know, not as many of these kind of pieces that are interactive. But this is what the piece looks like on the wall. It's a permanent installation. And you can again slide through it and all the layers come up, but they're all the layers are visible in the very end at least little pieces of them. So it's it is like a form of collage. And there is a voiceover.

Sherman shared that neighbors help one another.

I'm going to turn the sound off, which you can do you have rights to do. And again, the information log that tells where everything is. Plus they have a crossword puzzle they're selling and on the crossword puzzle they have a link to the painting, because this painting man everybody like they hate me after they get it they go this puzzle is impossible.

Roz Dimon

Because I mean even that look at that one little couple of inches of this piece it's very hard to figure out what you're doing here. You can see the sheep and the children's toys and the roof and the I mean tons of things at once.

Right.

Multiple layers of different opacities, you know, Real quick. This is a Young girl. And she's going inside the piece and trying to find things

Yeah. What are you looking for. Oh yeah, the document.

So she's got her iPad. She's clicked on the QR code and Yeah. She just gets it. She's like, oh, I'm going to find everything in here.

Yeah, actually, I like seeing this because this really, really shows what you're talking about. In terms of somebody actually interacting and going into that. I love that. That's a great. That's a great visual For your for your work there. That's awesome.

Thanks so much. Yeah, like she in a minute. She goes in and you can see her point to the wheel. And then you can see the wheel on her screen. She's like, oh, I'm just looking in there vaguely but see how the wheel comes up on her screen.

Yeah.

Oh, she just loved it. So that made she was great. So I'm kind of rolling along here. This is process. How I evolved artistically and technically it's all about paintings, which I call the diamond scapes and I do call them that, you know, I worked 30 years to make them something like a diamond scape and seems like a good name to me. I don't want it to distract from people doing it. But if someone does something I would like I like to always do it. I always pay homage. I think it's very important if we're going to be a respected industry and you know when I use anything in my diamonds scapes. It's not mine. I might I always call or, you know, I call me them sometime and say, oh, I need this piece of, you know, the Battle of Bunker Hill. I'm doing this interactive thing and they say, oh, great.

Roz Dimon

And I saw a link to you and your museum. Always get credit. So if someone does a diamond scape. I'd love it. They just said, you know, I don't think women should be passed off in history. And so that's when I do speak out. That gets you in a little trouble, but why not. So anyway, I'm also while I'm doing these pieces that I call novels, because they take about a year to make the diamond scapes. They're long Or three months at the full time every minute, but I also started drawing guns. Our nation was being torn apart by guns and I always loved drawing and painting that still the soul of me. And this is a Kalashnikov Here's another one of my guns and going in close up as I did before you can see the layers and these are big. I mean, these are sometimes Two gigs. The diamond scapes are two gigs.

Roz Dimon

These aren't that big there, but they're, you know, close. Some of them are close to a gig. And this is just the interior one little couple of inches of the Kalashnikov So it's like little paintings inside of paintings inside of paintings. I mean, you look at it. It looks like a drawing, but it's you can't make these kind of marks with a pencil. Now, Even though I love pencils, too. But, you know, I'm drawing with leaves and stars and it has an edge of the digital media.

Roz Dimon

I'm going to do this a second. This is a little recording of me and my process. I'm looking at a collection call on one screen and I'm painting it on the other. I live in this box, you know, it's become like a home so I work pretty fast. This is the most recent they add me if you want, you know, it says Like, what are you doing now. I just the first time I ever Michael this is My I'm curious how you respond to this, but this is the first time I ever loaded my paintbrush with other people's work.

Oh, really.

Yes, little kids Latin Latino kids and their families. I got this grant and I was very happy. Any a sponsored and NY, New York State of Council on the Arts and some community grants wonderfully generous and then coven came and they'd already They said they were going to work with me. The Children's Museum of Bridge Hampton out here on the east side. And I was delighted and I love the woman who runs the program lay openheimer just wonderful person with a real really making these kids and families lives. She loves them and they love her, but she had this course and then coven came and we had to do it all through zoom And I loaded my brush with all of their artwork.

That is so cool and made this piece.

Thank you. I mean, some people see it on my website go, God, you know, I don't know. Ross's art is really changed, you know, You don't hear this. You don't know really what it's about. But, you know, That'd be fun to have a surprise. You go inside it and it's all the their, their pictures and their voices and all their stuff and they're so excited to be part of me. I'm helping them raise funds by selling posters and you know artists have real power in this medium.

Yes.

You know, and they supported me and boy I'm supporting them. I'm People love this little poster. And they go, Ross, this doesn't look like your style. But, you know, intellectually again thought conceptual is part of it and exactly.

Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, that's what's going on here.

This is like you being a composer. You know, your aesthetic as the as the composing force to bring up bring all the kids artwork together.

Yeah, and I had to get screenshots off of zoom and then their voices. There's voices in this of like, oh, here's my bunny rabbit. I mean, we had so many So much fun online and these kids really their drawings. The next generation boy art is a big part of their vocabulary. You know, they all have an iPhone with millions of images. So they did some wonderful work and I just put it together and then I salute every single one of the kids. I didn't know if you saw in the credits, but they get lots of credits and here's just done a mini I'm kind of going to the finish line here and then we can keep chatting. But here's a recent piece. And when you go close up into it. You can see the kind of layering going on in it. Now, I haven't made it a dime. Enscape yet, but it's after reading a book by Haruki Murakami and It's just an amazing story about murder and lake and the space shuttle.

Roz Dimon

I mean, the, the, the Sputnik where they took a dog into space and there's tons of layering in here and you know, I like in this case I buy these little hearts because you can buy them and then I credit them and say where I bought them in the in the info in the Footnotes and oh yeah I get interrupted all the time by things happening. But I think it's really interesting to see how much of that is happening in our country. I respond and latest series of digital drawings and pin and ink and also pencil of Lincoln.

Roz Dimon

Because our world's being torn apart. I saw his face and as angry as I am lately I like to see both sides of things like even the guns there. They're there both sides of guns are good guns are evil. It's got a spiritual aspect everything on my work does a little bit Yeah. And attention and here's a picture of John Mark and I'm working on our, our latest piece where we're resurrecting the world's greatest bar chart.

Okay, cool.

And code going on is just it's intense. It's so intense and art story, which is something I coded in 1998 and it goes through all the years and it's a little bit crazy. Still, I'm still trying to make it work a little better. But you can go to the years and see stories you can see art, you can see different. There are lots of different ways to navigate. It's a new kind of way to navigate a blog. And I'm just going to end with, you know, I went to my doctor the other day and just get an EKG see I was doing. And I said, Oh, can I take that he said, Sure.

Roz Dimon

So I said, I need it for my next portrait, which I think will look something like this. And I guess I can end on that. But This is what my portrait. I mean, this is where we are, you know,

Here.

This is only like maybe a couple of months of the last year.

Wow.

And that's kind of what I'm doing in the diamond scale. You know, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So,

If we Kind of put a bow on all of this and sort of bring this to a nice what you would feel resolution. What about expressionism has drawn you into this. And where do you where do you see Things going From here and I don't want to spend too much time because we run. I don't know if we're running too long, but I just am curious because you have such a good historical perspective on seeing both the growth and evolution of technology where you where you're hopeful or where you think it might be going and what role expressionism and you using that You know, In you know sort of self identifying as a as a technology based artists in some respects.

Michael Pierre Price

Where were you raised this all headed

Yeah, I you know I know Collins work we showed a few times together. I respected and when I saw he was doing this group I got kind of curious but I tiptoed in, you know, but I found myself getting more and more interested. I'll tell you the truth. I love the community of it. You know my work is more than just tech and expressionism. I mean, I think it's cultural and it's, it's not that, that others aren't, but it, but what I like is that it is expressive, is about expression and it's, it's about a visual language and, and the community. And I love learning. I've really, I mean, in the late nineties, picture element, we were meeting, you know, at each other's homes and there was a community building and, and the dot-com people who didn't live through that don't realize how much it, it really did break a lot.

Roz Dimon

I felt at least in New York city and out here in Long Island, I love, I don't mind working alone because I'm always online with people, even before, you know, COVID. And I have a little group I work with, I do, and I have meetings with, but I, I was kind of, I like learning from people and I like seeing what young people are doing.

Right.

And I always like learning. I always like learning. So, and at a point as you're getting older, you have a lot you can bring to it. Right. And I like teaching and even I did teach a little bit in the early days, but I always got, I got kind of caught up in the corporate because there was no masters when I really wanted to take it. So, or I could have taught it because I was so early on in that area, but I, I must say, I love the community. I'm learning things, you know, I'm going to go make a non-fungible token. I mean, you know, I thought we were over this kind of like technical language. Wow.

Yeah. No kidding.

I don't even, I go, Colin, I said, or Davo, could you, please say that again? You know, and it's bringing me in connection with some, some women who I haven't seen like Darcy and some few others who in a long time. And I, I'm just kind of, I'm enjoying being part of it. I'm enjoying the meetings. And I also think that we are on a next wave.

Roz Dimon

You know, I, I think the AI and the immersive stuff going on is, is sort of where I've been going with my paintings, but I don't think I want to go into that. I, I really like just keeping the painting, maybe doing it. I want to have a touch, a little bit of a screen where you can go inside the paintings. That's the next thing I want to do. But, you know, I was at a conference at Yale last summer. I was honored to be there, but most of the people were with unity and had on their, you know, Odyssey and

It

Was an immersive conference and gaming, but they invited me because they love the concept of, wow, she has a painting that people are going inside. So I was honored to be there. And I think we are on a wave, a second strong wave of, of coming up and where all of a sudden the galleries, I mean, it's been very hard to be, as people have said to be in this industry, so many doors have closed. I mean, I've had some wonderful things lately and throughout my life, but, you know, the typical gallery circuit, if I said digital, that's very threatening to them and well, it should be. Cause you know what? We're the next big thing. And I've thought so for years, along with beyond video in a way, I mean, just something one more thing I can load in this brush. One more thing.

There's no, there's

No end. And it's flat as a pancake, which is almost like, to me, like a spiritual concept. Like, I mean, I can't see God or goddesses and, but I, I sure, I feel, I feel it. I feel it. The math is there too. So I think the artists using this medium have a, almost a new for me, I have been saying this for a while, but I feel like we're the new visual hyperglyphics of, of language. It's a universal one.

Yes.

And all over the world, people can understand. And I think that's the only thing that's really big and it's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me. And I think that's the only thing that's really big to me.

Roz Dimon

And rigor, but to make pieces together. And a new Atelier I see forming. I already work with one, three people.

I totally agree.

It'll be a movie. You're making movies and paintings and you'll make some sense out of all this chaos that people are drowning in. And we have the tools and I can't wait to see what young people do.

Cool. Well, this has been exciting.

I had nothing to say as usual.

All right.

I have to say, I want to interview you too, though.

Okay, well, we'll definitely make that happen. I have to say that it's been really, really enjoyable. And for me, Techspressionism brought me to meet you and many other artists that I'm being inspired by. So if nothing else, this has been a nice way to connect. I've been able to connect with folks that are out there that I had no idea about.

Michael Pierre Price

And this has been really, really fun for me to do. I'm very honored that I got to sort of do this with you today.

I've loved it. I have to say one more thing because it popped in my mind.

Okay, sure.

I'm someone who looks backward and forward. You know, I respect that we come from history and I know you have that in you too because some people will not go without connecting itself to, yeah, like the etchings. So Rembrandt and, you know, the first Alfresco paintings. But also I feel very strongly that even though, yes, we are a threat to galleries, we are also an asset because you can take, you know, clients, they can specify as the machines get more powerful, they can specify, you could go out to brick and clay and anything that could be translatable.

Roz Dimon

I'm always thinking about, oh, I'm making this at, you know, 500 by 400 or six by eight feet. And it's going to be over this building or it's going to be over someone's mantle. And six by eight. And you, you, there is a tether to the physical. And besides showing in the physical gallery, you can take people on a voyage behind the work. So sorry, I didn't, I, but I don't want to be going, I'm not going against the galleries. I think we can work with them. And, and people still love physical space, you know.

And I think with all of this, I think it's going to be a redefinition of what a gallery is and can be. And I think that's the exciting part is I think with every new really big jump, whether it's in technology or movement through advancements in our society in general, is that there's this growth period and experimentation during that time to figure out what are we, you know, like what is this really about? Or what could it be about? And artists have been doing this for a long time. And artists have always, it's the imaginative people. It's the people that can see outside the box, see the possibilities that go beyond the structures that have existed to this point and say what can be. And to me that's, that's an exciting time for us as artists to be alive right now because I think there's so many possibilities.

I think so too. And you know, there are artists and scholars and people who are supporting us. You know, Gail Levin, I went to Japan with her. I'm, well, I come from a Jesus even though I'm interfaith minister. She's Jewish. We went together. She invited and wrote something about this. So people like this and Helen Harrison, I mean, that was another draw for Techspressionism.

Roz Dimon

Cool. And it's nice to have these people. I love what you just said about it. And we so appreciate these people who are jumping on board and giving that stamp. Because we want to connect the past to the present to the future.

Exactly. Well, that sounds like a good way to kind of tie this up. And once again, Roz, thanks so much. Thank you. And I'm looking forward to this being up on the Techspressionist.com site for other artists and whoever else is interested in this whole thing about technology meeting art and being expressive of human emotion. So thanks again.

Thank you.